Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
thumb|Logo image. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a series offshoot of the Star Trek franchise that has existed in a number of different incarnations. Starfleet Academy has long been a popular setting for Star Trek tie-in media; several books, comics and games have featured casts of characters enrolled in this institution. ''Starfleet Academy'' series Game In video game releases, the series was an imprint licensed for release by Interplay, under the name for PC and Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator for the SNES console. The PC version had offshoots as Starfleet Academy: Chekov's Lost Missions, which included additional gameplay interaction but was essentially the same game, and Starfleet Academy: Strategic Command, which was a basic version consisting only of the first few missions. A tie-in novel was released, , by Diane Carey, telling a condensed version of the game narrative. The games and novel feature the adventures of Cadet David Forester, a command division trainee being instructed by Pavel Chekov, Hikaru Sulu and James T. Kirk. A supporting cast of characters was created and is common through the aforementioned incarnations, although some character details are altered between the various releases. Klingon Academy was also a spinoff of this series set in the Klingon Empire A later video game, Academy Trainer, was released as a digital tie-in to 2009's . It bore no relation to the previous video game series despite being set at the Academy, in what would be revealed to be the Kelvin timeline of the new movie series. Novels Besides the aforementioned novel, a prose subseries was released in the 1990s with adventures of individual characters from the various other series in the Star Trek franchise attending the Academy. Characters from TOS, TNG and VOY had books in this series. In the Heyne Verlag German language translations, this series was called Starfleet Kadetten. Even though Jake Sisko was not a Starfleet Academy cadet, several DS9 young reader books were translated and published as part of the series overseas. An additional novel, The Best and the Brightest, was set at the Academy with an original cast of characters, under the TNG series and not bearing the Starfleet Academy name. In the Kelvin timeline of the new movie, a new book series was released in 2010. This prequel series focused on the various TOS characters who would shortly be united as the new crew. Because it took place before the film, and could not meet or prior to their introduction to each other in that movie's events, nor could appear and meet any of them. Comics Marvel Comics released a comic series in the 1990s featuring an original cast of characters led by a descendant of Matthew Decker and featuring Nog. Later, also in the 2009 Star Trek film's Kelvin timeline, a new comic began in 2015. Like the novel series, the comic was also a prequel to the new films and took place before the primary TOS characters met in that film. Similarly to the predecessor comic, however, this series also introduced a new supporting cast as well. Collectibles In the Playmates Toys releases of collectibles, an action figure series of TNG characters as cadets was released, loosely related to the the 1990s book series listed above, but not directly tied in. Cadets Jean-Luc Picard, William T. Riker, Geordi La Forge and Worf were released under the Starfleet Academy moniker, but Cadets Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi and Data were released simply as part of the general Star Trek series. Additionally, not under the Starfleet Academy name, but in conjunction with the 2009 film and featuring alongside the 2010s SA books, figures of and Sulu as cadets were released by Playmates, even though they did not appear in that capacity in the film. Appendices Connections category:series